Updated November 7, 2026. Applies to Valheim 1.0, patch 1.0.21. Build costs, timers and capacities come from the community Valheim Wiki. We checked every Iron Gate patch post on Steam from 1.0 up to patch 1.0.21 (October 28, 2026). None of them change smelting speed, coal use or station capacity.
Every metal in Valheim goes through a station before you can use it. Ore becomes bars in a Smelter or Blast Furnace, and both burn Coal from a Charcoal Kiln. Later the Eitr Refinery, Windmill and Spinning Wheel do the same job for magic, food and cloth.
This guide covers all six. You get the build cost and unlock for each, what goes in and what comes out, the exact coal and wood math, and a fix list for the "my smelter keeps turning off" problems people post every week.
Quick answer: The Smelter (20 Stone, 5 Surtling Cores) turns Copper, Tin, Iron and Silver into bars. The Blast Furnace (20 Stone, 5 Surtling Cores, 10 Iron, 20 Finewood, needs an Artisan Table after Moder) handles Black Metal, Flametal and Bloodgold. Both take 30 seconds per bar, burn 1 Coal every 15 seconds (2 Coal per bar) and hold 10 ore and 20 Coal. One Charcoal Kiln makes 1 Coal every 15 seconds, so 1 kiln keeps 1 smelter running as long as you keep both topped up. If a station stops after a few seconds, its smoke can't escape. Leave about 1 m of open space above it.
Which Valheim station processes what?
| Station | Build cost | Unlock / needs | Input → output | Speed | Holds |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Smelter | 20 Stone, 5 Surtling Core | First Surtling Core; Workbench nearby | Copper Ore, Copper Scrap, Tin Ore, Scrap Iron, Iron Ore, Silver Ore, Scrap Bronze → bars | 30 s per bar | 10 ore, 20 Coal |
| Charcoal Kiln | 20 Stone, 5 Surtling Core | First Surtling Core; Workbench nearby | Wood, Finewood or Corewood → Coal | 15 s per Coal | 25 wood |
| Blast Furnace | 20 Stone, 5 Surtling Core, 10 Iron, 20 Finewood | Artisan Table (Moder) | Black Metal Scrap, Flametal Ore, Petrified Tissue → bars | 30 s per bar | 10 ore, 20 Coal |
| Eitr Refinery | 20 Black Marble, 5 Black Metal, 10 Yggdrasil Wood, 5 Black Core, 3 Sap | Mistlands materials; Workbench | Sap + Soft Tissue → Refined Eitr | ~40 s per Sap | 20 Sap, 20 Soft Tissue |
| Windmill | 20 Stone, 30 Wood, 30 Iron Nails | Artisan Table (Moder) | Barley → Barley Flour; Oat Seeds → Oats; Oats → Oat Flour | ~13 s per item | 50 grain |
| Spinning Wheel | 20 Finewood, 10 Iron Nails, 5 Leather Scraps | Artisan Table (Moder) | Flax → Linen Thread | 30 s per thread | 40 Flax |
Two things trip people up here. The Blast Furnace cannot smelt anything the Smelter can, so you need both for the whole game. And the Frigid Kiln from the Deep North is a different station: it turns Ice into Liquid Frost for Nord gear. It's covered in our Valheim workbench upgrades guide with the Frost Foundry.
How do you unlock the Smelter in Valheim?
Pick up your first Surtling Core and the Smelter and Charcoal Kiln both appear in the Hammer menu. Cores come from the Burial Chambers in the Black Forest and from Surtlings around the Swamp's fire geysers.
You need 10 Surtling Cores to build both, plus 20 Stone each. Build them inside your Workbench's range. Neither needs the Workbench once it's placed.
The Smelter has three openings, and they matter for base design:
- Left side: ore goes in here.
- Right side: Coal goes in here.
- Front chute: bars drop out here.
Leave room on all three sides so you can reach the ports. Bars fall onto the ground in front of the chute, so don't build that side against a wall or a drop.
Can you put a Smelter on a wood floor?
No. The Smelter, Charcoal Kiln and Blast Furnace only go on terrain or stone. The wiki's workaround is to raise the ground with a Hoe until it's level with your wooden floor, then place the station on the dirt. Stone floor pieces also work.
What is the Charcoal Kiln to Smelter ratio?
One to one. Here's the math, all from the wiki's Smelter and Charcoal Kiln pages:
- A Smelter burns 1 Coal every 15 seconds and makes 1 bar every 30 seconds, so it uses 4 Coal a minute and 2 Coal per bar.
- A Charcoal Kiln turns 1 wood into 1 Coal every 15 seconds, so it makes 4 Coal a minute.
So one kiln keeps one Smelter or Blast Furnace burning, as long as you keep moving Coal across and refilling both. Neither runs unattended forever. Each bar costs you 2 wood once you count the Coal.
| Job | Ore | Coal needed | Wood for the Coal | Smelter time |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| One full Smelter load | 10 | 20 | 20 | 5 min |
| One full Charcoal Kiln load | — | 25 made | 25 | 6 min 15 s |
| One Copper deposit, typical accessible yield (~117 ore) | 117 | 234 | 234 | ~58 min |
| Enough for 10 Bronze (20 Copper + 10 Tin) | 30 | 60 | 60 | 15 min |
The kiln takes wood from your inventory in a fixed order: Wood first, then Finewood, then Corewood. If you hold Finewood or Corewood you need for building, put it in a chest before you fill the kiln.
Where else can you get Coal?
The kiln is the steady source, but the wiki's Coal page lists four more:
- Surtlings in the Swamp drop it. Players dig fire geysers down into the water so the Surtlings keep dying and leave Coal and Cores.
- Overcooked meat on a cooking station turns into Coal.
- Random chests sometimes hold it.
- In the Ashlands, a Wood Stack set on fire with a Campfire or Staff of Embers gives about 50 Coal per pile.
Coal weighs 2 and stacks to 50, and it can go through a normal Portal. Ore and bars can't, which brings up the weight question.
Do bars weigh less than ore in Valheim?
No, and for most metals the bar is heavier. A thread titled "Ingots should weigh less than raw ore" had 435 upvotes and 139 comments on r/valheim when we checked on November 7, 2026, and the wiki's item data backs up the complaint:
| Raw material | Weight | Bar | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Copper Ore | 10 | Copper | 12 |
| Tin Ore | 8 | Tin | 8 |
| Scrap Iron | 10 | Iron | 12 |
| Silver Ore | 14 | Silver | 14 |
| Black Metal Scrap | 10 | Black Metal | 12 |
| Flametal Ore | 10 | Flametal | 12 |
| Petrified Tissue | 14 | Bloodgold | 14 |
Both ore and bars stack to 30, and on default world settings neither can go through a wooden Portal. So smelting at the mine doesn't save weight or bag space. A remote smelter outpost only makes sense when it saves you a trip, like turning ore into bars where you'll craft the gear. Otherwise haul raw ore home by boat or cart and smelt it there.
The Valheim portals guide covers the stone portal that can carry metal, and the Valheim ores guide shows where each ore comes from.
How do you unlock the Blast Furnace in Valheim?
Kill Moder in the Mountain and take her Dragon Tears. Build an Artisan Table (2 Dragon Tears, 10 Wood), then place the Blast Furnace inside its range. The furnace itself costs 20 Stone, 5 Surtling Cores, 10 Iron and 20 Finewood.
It smelts three things:
- Black Metal Scrap → Black Metal (Plains, from Fulings and their chests)
- Flametal Ore → Flametal (Ashlands, from veins on Lavaiathans)
- Petrified Tissue → Bloodgold (Deep North, from stone-dead Gammeltrolls broken with Ember Charges)
The speed and fuel are the same as the Smelter: 30 seconds per bar, 2 Coal per bar, 10 ore and 20 Coal at a time. The ports sit differently, though. Both refuel ports are on the left of the bar chute, so a build that fits a Smelter may not fit a Blast Furnace.
Iron Gate touched the furnace in the 1.0 launch notes, but only its model. The patch line reads: "Optimization tweaks to multiple models (Asksvin Skeleton, Artisan Table, Blast Furnace)." Nothing in 1.0.10 to 1.0.21 changed what it smelts or how fast.
For the full Bloodgold chain, see our Bloodgold farming guide.
Why does my Valheim smelter keep turning off?
Usually it's smoke. The Smelter, Charcoal Kiln and Blast Furnace all puff out smoke while they run. The wiki's Smoke page explains the rule: a station stops if it can't release smoke for 4 seconds.
Each smoke puff has a 0.42 m radius, about 0.84 m wide, so it needs roughly 1 m of open space to get out. Smoke lasts 60 seconds and rises about 22.5 m in that time if nothing blocks it. The wiki says that if you give the station a pocket of air about 4 × 2 × 2 m, starting 0.75 m above it, it can run with no chimney at all.
Use this table to diagnose any refining station:
| Problem | Station | Cause | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| Starts, then stops after a few seconds | Smelter, Kiln, Blast Furnace | Smoke can't escape | Open a 1 m gap in the roof above it, or leave about 4 × 2 × 2 m of air over it |
| You take damage near it | Smelter, Kiln, Blast Furnace | Standing in trapped smoke (the Smoked effect) | Vent the room, or put the station under an open roof |
| Won't place | Smelter, Kiln, Blast Furnace | You're on a wood floor | Place it on dirt or stone; raise the ground with a Hoe |
| Won't place | Blast Furnace, Windmill, Spinning Wheel | No Artisan Table in range | Build the Artisan Table next to it (needs Moder's Dragon Tears) |
| Won't take Copper or Iron | Blast Furnace | Wrong station | Copper, Tin, Iron and Silver only go in the Smelter |
| Won't take Black Metal | Smelter | Wrong station | Use a Blast Furnace |
| Losing durability | Eitr Refinery, Spinning Wheel | Rain damage | Put a roof over them |
| Walls nearby break | Eitr Refinery | Its lightning and poison discharges | Surround it with Black Marble or iron or copper cage walls |
| Slow or not spinning | Windmill | Low wind, fog, or something blocking it | Build it in the open, ideally in the Plains |
| Burning your Finewood | Charcoal Kiln | It loads Wood, then Finewood, then Corewood | Store the good wood in a chest first |
Stations also work faster while you sleep, like everything else that processes over time. A full Smelter load is a good thing to start before bed.
How does the Eitr Refinery work in Valheim?
The Eitr Refinery makes Refined Eitr, the material behind Mistlands magic gear and staves. It's the most expensive station on this list:
- 20 Black Marble, 5 Black Metal, 10 Yggdrasil Wood, 5 Black Cores and 3 Sap.
Black Cores come from Infested Mines. Our Infested Mines guide covers how many you get per mine and how to find the hidden doors.
It has two inputs:
- Sap goes in the funnel at the front, up to 20. Sap is the fuel: each one adds about 40 seconds.
- Soft Tissue goes in the grinder on top, up to 20. Build stairs to reach it.
A full load makes 20 Refined Eitr in about 800 seconds, a little over 13 minutes. The wiki notes that it actually uses 20 Soft Tissue and only 19 Sap, leaving 1 Sap behind.
Where do you get Sap and Soft Tissue?
Sap comes from a Sap Extractor (10 Yggdrasil Wood, 5 Black Metal, 1 Dvergr Extractor from Dvergr component crates) placed on the Ancient Roots in the Mistlands. It pulls 1 Sap every 60 seconds and holds 10. Each root stores up to 50 Sap but only refills 1 Sap every 400 seconds, so once a root's reservoir runs dry your extractor slows to that trickle. Move extractors between several roots instead of waiting on one.
Soft Tissue is mined from the brain inside giant skulls in the Mistlands with a Black Metal Pickaxe or better. Each skull has 118 small nodes at a 50% drop chance, so expect about 59 Soft Tissue per skull. Dvergr crates, Dvergr Rogues and Dvergr Mages also drop it, and so do the flesh mounds in Ashlands Putrid Holes.
Soft Tissue and Refined Eitr can both go through a Portal, so you can process them at home. For what to make with the Eitr, see our Valheim magic guide.
Placement warning: the refinery gives off small lightning and poison discharges while it works, and so does Refined Eitr left on the ground. They damage wood and ordinary stone. Black Marble pieces and iron or copper cage walls are immune, so build its room out of those.
How do the Windmill and Spinning Wheel work?
These are the two Plains stations, and both need the Artisan Table.
Windmill
The Windmill (20 Stone, 30 Wood, 30 Iron Nails) grinds grain. It turns Barley into Barley Flour, and since 1.0 it also turns Oat Seeds into Oats and Oats into Oat Flour for the Deep North foods. It holds 50 grain and drops the output in stacks of 50.
The base speed is 10 seconds per item. The blades always cover part of the mill, which slows that to about 13 seconds in good wind. Weak wind, fog and anything blocking the wind slow it more. Wind is strong in the Plains, so build it there, in the open. A few windmills side by side help on calm days.
The blades also hit for 20 Blunt damage every 2 seconds, enough to kill Deathsquitos, so don't walk through them.
Barley Flour goes into bread, pies and Fish Wraps. Our Valheim farming guide covers growing the Barley and Oats.
Spinning Wheel
The Spinning Wheel (20 Finewood, 10 Iron Nails, 5 Leather Scraps) turns Flax into Linen Thread at 30 seconds per thread. It holds 40 Flax, so a full load takes 20 minutes. It only has 200 durability and takes rain damage, so keep it indoors.
Linen Thread is in Black Metal weapons, Padded armor, the Lox Saddle and the Mistlands and Ashlands mage gear. You'll need a lot of it, so it's worth running a second wheel.
What's the best smelting setup for a Valheim base?
A simple, reliable layout for most of the game:
- One Charcoal Kiln per Smelter or Blast Furnace. It's a 1:1 match, so neither one waits on the other.
- Put them on a stone floor under a roof with an open strip above each station. That keeps the rain off and lets the smoke out.
- Keep a chest of wood and a chest of ore between them. Filling 25 wood and 10 ore is quicker from a chest next to the station.
- Leave the front of every chute clear. Bars land on the ground there.
- Build the Eitr Refinery in its own Black Marble room and the Windmill outside in the open.
Running stations also count as a fire for warmth: the wiki puts the reach at about 4.5 m for a Smelter, 3 m for a Blast Furnace and 2 m for a kiln. That also makes them the fire you need nearby for the Rested buff. Our comfort guide covers that.
FAQ
What can you smelt in a Valheim Smelter? Copper Ore, Copper Scrap, Tin Ore, Scrap Iron, Iron Ore, Silver Ore and Scrap Bronze. Black Metal, Flametal and Bloodgold need the Blast Furnace.
How much coal does it take to smelt one bar in Valheim? 2 Coal per bar in both the Smelter and the Blast Furnace. A full load of 10 ore uses 20 Coal and takes 5 minutes.
How many Charcoal Kilns do you need per Smelter? One. A kiln makes 1 Coal every 15 seconds and a Smelter burns 1 Coal every 15 seconds, so they match exactly.
Why won't my Blast Furnace take Copper or Iron? The Blast Furnace only smelts Black Metal Scrap, Flametal Ore and Petrified Tissue. Copper, Tin, Iron and Silver still go in the regular Smelter, so keep both.
Why does my Valheim Smelter stop working? Usually because the smoke can't get out. A station stops if it can't release smoke for 4 seconds. Leave about 1 m of open roof above it.
Can you take ore or metal through a portal in Valheim? Not through a normal wooden Portal on default world settings, so carry ore and bars by boat or cart. The Ashlands Stone portal is the exception: it carries metal if the portal you step into is also a Stone portal. Coal, Surtling Cores, Soft Tissue and Refined Eitr can go through.
Do bars weigh less than ore? No. Copper, Iron, Black Metal and Flametal bars weigh 12 against 10 for the ore, and Tin, Silver and Bloodgold weigh the same as their ore. Smelting early doesn't lighten your load.
More Valheim guides
Need the ore first? These guides cover where it comes from and what to build with it.
- Valheim ores guide: where to find every metal
- Valheim workbench upgrades: every station level
- Valheim Bloodgold: how to get and farm it
- Valheim boss order: all bosses and how to beat them
Sources checked November 7, 2026: Iron Gate's 1.0 launch notes and patch posts 1.0.10 to 1.0.21 (Steam announcements for app 892970); the community Valheim Wiki pages for the Smelter, Blast Furnace, Charcoal Kiln, Eitr Refinery, Sap Extractor, Soft Tissue, Windmill, Spinning Wheel, Smoke, Coal and each ore and bar. Reddit vote counts from r/valheim on November 7, 2026.
